Free Resources

Over at Sovereign Grace Ministries one can download the entire main set of 2006 "Together for the Gospel" conference. Download them here. Enjoy!

Message titles and speakers

The Pastor’s Understanding of His Own Role (Mark Dever)
Preaching from the Old Testament (Ligon Duncan)
Preaching with the Culture in View (Albert Mohler)
The Center of Christian Preaching: Justification by Faith (R.C. Sproul)
Why Expositional Preaching Is Particularly Glorifying to God (John Piper)
Watch Your Life (C.J. Mahaney)
Forty Years of Gospel Ministry (John MacArthur)

America's Most Popular Theologian

I have said it before and I will say it again, "Oprah Winfrey is America's most popular theologian." If you would like to know what this "theologian" is teaching about God and humanity then you must read this article by Warren Smith.

Here is a quick smattering of what Oprah teaches in "A Course in Miracles," a year long course on New Age doctrine. What she teaches is dangerous, deceptive, and flat out wrong:

“There is no sin. . . "
A “slain Christ has no meaning."
“The journey to the cross should be the last ‘useless journey.”
“Do not make the pathetic error of ‘clinging to the old rugged cross.’”
“The Name of Jesus Christ as such is but a symbol... It is a symbol that is safely used as a replacement for the many names of all the gods to which you pray.”
“God is in everything I see.”
“The recognition of God is the recognition of yourself.”
“The oneness of the Creator and the creation is your wholeness, your sanity and your limitless power.”
“The Atonement is the final lesson he [man] need learn, for it teaches him that, never having sinned, he has no need of salvation.”

Avoid Every Appearance of Evil!!

Daniel Wallace has posted some great thoughts on what 1 Thessalonians 5:22 means when it says, "avoid every appearance of evil." I can remember as a child being told not to play cards, or watch movies at the theatre, etc., because they are the appearance of evil. I have long since grown away from that erroneous teaching but many still have not. I hope many will read this article and think carefully about its implications for the Christian life.

Church & Culture

"We do not want, as the newspapers say, a church that will move with the world. We want a church that will move the world."
- G.K. Chesterton

Programs! Come Get Your Programs!

The ancient church had a minium of organization, but it had a maximum of power. The average church today has a maximum of organization but tragically lacks power. Dr. G. Campbell Morgan once warned, “One of Satan’s methods today is to start so many organizations in a church that the members have no time for unhurried communion with God. Many Christians are so busy that they can hear only the clink and clatter of church machinery." Too often we are over-organized and under-agonized.
—Walter B. Knight

What God's church needs today is not new and better programs, but more men and women and children who are burdened and praying wholeheartedly for the spiritual and physical needs of fellow brothers and sisters in Christ around the world. The church needs more individuals who are committed both privately and publicly to prayer.

Epigram on Prayer Meeting

I first heard this on the radio a few months back and I remember thinking to myself how true it is! Unfortunately, I could never quite remember how it went so I couldn't share it with others, but now that has all changed.

The popularity of a CHURCH is measured by its Sunday morning attendance and the popularity of the PREACHER by its Sunday evening attendance. However, the popularity of the LORD is measured at the prayer meeting.

—The Bible Friend

Food for Living

"Man shall not live by bread alone, buy by every word that comes from the mouthof God" (Matthew 4:4).

The church father Jerome, in reflection upon this statement by Jesus, wrote, "if anyone does not feed upon God's Word, that one will not live."

Enough said?

When God Wants to Drill a Man

When God wants to drill a man,
And thrill a man,
And skill a man
When God wants to mold a man
To play the noblest part;

When He yearns with all His heart
To create so great and bold a man
That all the world shall be amazed,
Watch His methods, watch His ways!

How He ruthlessly perfects
Whom He royally elects!
How He hammers him and hurts him,
And with mighty blows converts him

Into trial shapes of clay which
Only God understands;
While his tortured heart is crying
And he lifts beseeching hands!

How He bends but never breaks
When his good He undertakes;
How He uses whom He chooses,
And which every purpose fuses him;
By every act induces him
To try His splendor out-
God knows what He's about.

- Author Unknown

Grammar, what is it good for?

Need to brush up on your grammar skills? Having trouble remembering when to use commas, or how to use apostrophes, or what on earth subject-verb agreement is? Then here is your road to better grammar. This website is complete with over 300 grammar quizzes, games, and downloads to help you!

Are You Fit To Be A Minister of Christ?

“Nor is a man fitted to be a minister of Christ who does not have
the proper public spirit towards the Church. He needs to delight in
its beauty, long for its happiness, seek for its good, and rejoice in
its welfare. He must be willing to spend and to be spent for the
sake of the Church.”

-Richard Baxter

Worry Wart

I found this on the Internet as a sermon illustration for "worry." I got a good laugh out of it and so I thought I would share it.

How you can tell when it's going to be a rotten day:

You wake up face down on the pavement.
You see a "60 Minutes" news team waiting in your office.
Your birthday cake collapses from the weight of the candles.
You turn on the news and they're showing emergency routes out of the city.
Your twin sister forgot your birthday.
Your car horn goes off accidentally and remains stuck as you follow a group of Hell's Angels on the freeway. Your boss tells you not to bother to take off your coat. The bird singing outside your window is a buzzard. You wake up and your braces are locked together. You call your answering service and they tell you it's none of your business.
Your income tax check bounces. You put both contact lenses in the same eye. Your wife says, "Good morning, Bill", and your name is George.

Source Unknown.

Worry, of course, is no laughing matter because we usually worry about nothing. Worry is like a rocking chair, it gives you something to do, but you don't get anywhere. Jesus Christ taught a lot about worry, positive and negative. One should read Matthew 6:19-35 to see what he said!

Under Christ Our Lord

"I keep returning to this simple question: is Jesus Christ the Lord of the church, so that it submits to his teaching however unpalatable, or is the church the lord of Jesus Christ so that it manipulates his teaching in order to make it palatable? Will the church listen humbly and obediently to Jesus Christ, or will it behave like the brash adolescent it often seems to be, contradicting its master and putting him right where he has gone wrong? Is the church "over" or "under" Christ?

- John Stott, Life in Christ: A Guide for Daily Living